Google Presentation Day

When we presented our song in front of the class, we first played the actual song off of Youtube (video on sidebar). Off that, we discussed the fun, hardships, and new things we learned from the project. Of which included the difficulty of having to learn the ranges of different parts, listening to the song repeatedly to make sure we had the right notes and rhythms, and the many functions of Finale (the software we used to create the song). We then finished the presentation by playing our piece directly off Finale.

Besides our presentation, I noticed that a lot of others chose to transpose music into Pep band music as well. Listening to other projects made me realize that creating these songs can be difficult if he or she does not know what to do. As such, I have to admit that Alec really took control of the project and that without him it probably would've turned out much worse.

Another thing I realized from seeing so many Pep band projects is that transposing music for football/basketball games isn't very creative. So next year I hope we will look into a different, probably more time-consuming, Google project. But to wrap what we have done with this year's project, we will be rounding off a few rough edges of the song then hopefully printing it for use on the field.

Kyle Chang

Google day Post

Today on our last google day we finished the entire project. We wrote out all the parts and they playback very well. It sounds really cool but unfortunatly the computer isnt very lively when it plays, so I am really excited to hear this live!! All we need to do is print it out for the whole band to try.

-Alec

11/27/2012

The last in-class Google day went well despite some technical errors, the school computers we use for Finale seem to have problems every day. The song itself is done, all that we have left would be organizing each part for printing. Looking back at the course of this project, it doesn't seem very productive at first since the song is a pretty simple song. Writing out "Seven Nation Army" took up more time than I expected. Besides some technical/availability issues, the process of listening to the song repeatedly and putting it on paper for every single part took up a lot of time.
Working on this project with Alec taught me the basics of arranging music for a pep band, including for some parts that I never really acknowledged until now, as well as a decent amount of knowledge on how to work the Finale program.

Kyle Chang

Google Day 11/9/12

Our last in-class Google Day did not go as well as planned because we did not manage to get on a computer to work on our music. So we are hoping to get together sometime out of class to do some touch-ups to our song. We'll probably also bring our own laptops for future Google Days.
For "Seven Nation Army" we just need to brush up the parts before we can print it off.

We'll post again when we get some more work done.

-Kyle Chang

Update!!!!

Hey there!

Due to technical difficulties and Google I could not sign in to the blog as of right now so I am posting for the last "Google Day" we had which i believe was last Tuesday.

On Tuesday Kyle and I got a lot on the project done. It was the most productive and successful day yet. We got farther on the writing of the piece. What we did today was write out the vocal part for the higher reed players and trumpets if i remember correctly. This would also allow the crowd at the games to sing along so they will get really pumped. The great thing about this song is most people know the riff at the least, and it's very catchy so it's perfect for the games. We also were able to finish (?) the bass parts as well as drums. The last thing we need to do is write the buildup section, and write harmony parts for the Sax and Trumpet so we have a huge BANG!! at the chorus. So far it's going good.

-Alec

Almost Done

On the last Google day, Alec and got down all of the parts for the piece. After the cuts we decided to make the song is about 50 seconds long. All we have now is to actually make sure the parts are easy to play and sound good as a whole. Which means we'd probably have to move some parts up or down then test it with real instruments instead of the finale software.

Since we still have some time before the end of this project, we are considering writing another song/band chant. Although we haven't really narrowed it down at all, "We Are the Champions" seems to fit pretty well with the football atmosphere we have at our school.

-Kyle Chang

First Day...

Hey It's Alec,

Today was the first in class day we got to work on our projects and it was really productive. We had to fish around with some songs in order to find one that people would know as well as the song being available to make an effective band ensemble shift. We started with ideas such as "Still of the Night" by Whitesnake which would be fun to play but is not a very known song. Next we tried "We Are the Champions" by Queen and we thought it would work except for the key vocal part in the beginning where there is just a piano. We thought the effect of the chant would lose a lot of value if we just jumped straight into the chorus which is where the rest of the ensemble would begin. It would lose it's buildup which is essential to the feeling of the song. What we settled on was "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes because it has a serious buildup to get the crowd pumped and riled as well as it would have a very nice ensemble sound. Our idea is to stick with the original idea of the song where it's just low parts playing, then the drums come in with a crescendo, and that would lead to the punch where the high parts blast the crowd with a barrage of awesomeness in the chorus! What i got done today on the writing part of the song was the bass line which can be transferred easily to any other instrument and the drum line. I need to work on the harmonies now and get the crash on the other instruments such as flute, clarinet, etc. So far it's going well.